Simon Says

by William Poe

  “Come home more often,” Vivian said. “Having you here makes me feel better than anything.”

  There was no way to buy myself out of it. Vivian cared more about seeing me than keeping up payments on the property. My degree of self-worth was so low that I couldn’t comprehend how or why she felt that way.

  While I was at Vivian’s, I frequently telephoned LA. The machine always picked up, and I left a message each time. Thad never returned the calls. Finally, when I was about ready to have the police go to the house, he answered.

  His voice was hoarse. I knew something was up.

  “How are things?” I said.

  When Thad recognized my voice, I heard scrambling, scuffs against the receiver, raucous background noises. “I was asleep,” Thad said, his voice a little stronger, as if he’d drunk some water to clear his throat.

  “Where are you? I heard a click before you picked up, like call forwarding was on. Are you at Scott’s?”

  “No, no. I’m here. When are you coming back?”

  “Today. I’ll be there tonight. Can you pick me up?”

  “Uh, well, the, uh, car isn’t running so great. Maybe you should take a taxi.”

  “Be there when I get home,” I said.

  “Okay. Sure. Yeah,” Thad said in a faltering voice. I knew he was high. I wanted to know where he was, and who he was with. I was sure about the call forwarding.

  Vivian wanted me to drive her to Magnolia to visit relatives, most of whom I’d not seen since I was a kid, but I insisted that my business demanded that I return right away.

  Vivian accepted the announcement courageously, until she came to my room and found me packing.

  “Oh, hon,” Vivian said, struggling not to cry. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

  If only I could have explained that I was afraid my lover was cheating on me. She would recognize the theme from the words of the country songs she knew. But it wouldn’t make sense that a man could experience something like jealousy over another man. Anyway, I wasn’t willing to give her the chance to understand.

  “I wish I could stay,” I said, not quite sure I was lying, “but a sale might be in jeopardy. I have to go back.”

  The next plane didn’t depart until late evening. Connie, Derek, Cheryl, and Victoria came over for a final dinner. Connie brought a tub of Kentucky Fried Chicken with buckets of mashed potatoes and coleslaw.

  After the meal, Vivian turned off the lights. Connie slipped out of the room, reappearing from around the corner with an extravagant devil’s food cake decorated with thirty-five lit candles. Spelled out in icing were the words, Happy Birthday, Bubby.

  I’d completely forgotten what day it was.

  I blew out the candles following an off-key rendition of the inevitable birthday song. When the applause faded, I opened my presents. Cheryl gave me a pen and pencil set. I acknowledged it by giving her a hug.

  “It’s not too practical, is it?” Cheryl asked.

  “Not at all. Every time I use it, I’ll think of you. That makes it special.”

  Little Victoria gave me a piggybank, telling me I needed to save money. That was her Sesame Street lesson of the day, and she wanted to share it with me.

  Vivian gave me a card with twenty dollars inside, saying sheepishly, “I didn’t know what you would like.”

  I called a taxi to come from Little Rock. Vivian stood behind the screen door as the driver made his way across the gravel to the main road. She had already gotten ready for bed. Her hair, dyed black, was coiled into bundles and secured with bobby pins. Her face was covered with Jergens lotion. She clutched her bathrobe tight and waved good-bye.

  CHAPTER 21

  During the flight, I pulled up the armrests in my nearly empty row of seats and stretched out to take a nap. But sleep was out of the question. Tumultuous thoughts bombarded my mind, ranging from anger at Thad and nearly unbearable craving for drugs to utter fear that I was about to lose the business I had worked so hard to establish.

  Approaching the runway at Los Angeles International, we encountered wind shears that made the wings bounce up and down. The plane lurched forward. Passengers yelped in fear, but I was calm. If only the plane would burst into flames, I thought, my troubles would be over.

  The sun was just breaking over the reservoir as the airport shuttle neared Silverwood Terrace. When we rounded the final corner, I spotted my car in the driveway. I paid the driver and carried my things to the front door, not knowing what to expect. The furniture was there, and I laughed with relief at that simple fact. I stuck my finger in the soil at the base of the twenty-foot ficus I had bought for the window at the patio. The dampness told me that it had been watered recently. The stereo, tape deck, and computer equipment were all in place. The bedroom was neat and tidy. There was no sign that Thad had ever lived in the house. The picture of us I kept on the dresser was gone. Thad’s clothes were missing from the closet.

  Computer logs indicated that files had not been accessed since I left. I picked up the phone and heard a beeping sound that told me call forwarding was redirecting to my answering service. Thad must have come in after our phone call and reset it.

  I called my bank and punched in the credit card number. In the last three days, there were charges that totaled $1,000.

  An idea struck me. I went to the telephone downstairs and pressed redial. After a couple of rings, I recognized Jerry’s voice.

  “Yeah, who is it?” he said.

  I didn’t respond.

  “Who the fuck’s there?”

  “Can I talk to Scott?” I asked, trying to disguise my voice to sound as though I was calling from the office.

  Jerry set down the receiver. I heard him trying to rouse Scott. Groggy and irritated, Scott answered.

  “Hi, Scott. I’m back.”

  “Simon?”

  “Where’s Thad?” I demanded.

  Scott must have held the phone against his chest. I heard a muffled question asked of Jerry, Should I tell him? And Jerry responding, Who the fuck cares?

  “Thad didn’t want me to say anything,” Scott teased. “He made me swear.”

  “You asshole! If you don’t tell me what’s going on, you can forget about our friendship.”

  “Let me think about this,” Scott said.

  “You son of a bitch, Scott!” I shouted. Then, calming down, I said, “Excuse me, dear friend, here I was thinking you’d want to share in the ounce I’m about to buy. Guess not.”

  “You mean you really didn’t know? Thad’s in San Diego.”

  “Tell me the whole story. All of it.”

  Scott took a deep breath. “When do you think you’ll be over with the drugs?”

  “It’s sounding like never.”

  “All right, all right. It started months ago, when you got sick. Thad came down here almost every day. He and Jerry would go to San Diego and hang out at Black’s Beach.”

  “Didn’t that bother you? My Thad and your Jerry traipsing around on a nude beach?”

  “Get real, Simon. They’ll do what they want whether we know about it or not. Look, do you want the story, or don’t you?”

  “Go on.”

  “Thad met a marine. His name is Marvin. Thad turned him on to coke for the first time. That was it, instant love.”

  “Where’s Thad now?”

  “He told me he had forwarded your calls to Marvin’s. When you said you were coming back, he drove up and forwarded the calls to the answering service. Then he came by here and put some of his stuff in the guest room.”

  Just as I suspected.

  “Do you have an address? Do you know Marvin’s last name?”

  Once again, Scott hesitated. “When are you bringing the drugs?”

  “Tell you what. Give me the information, then you can meet me tonight at the Spotlight, around nine.”

  Scott groaned at the long wait he’d have to endure. He gave me Marvin’s last name as well as an address. Getting the phone number was a simple matter of c
alling information at the marine base.

  When I heard Thad’s voice, I froze.

  “Hello?” Thad questioned, then a little louder, “Hello?”

  “It’s me, Thad.”

  I could hear him gasp. “How’d you get this number?”

  “If you want to keep a secret, Scott is the last person to tell. He’s been my friend a lot longer than he’s been yours.” Thad was silent. “Why’d you do it, Thad? Don’t you understand that I love you?”

  “I’m sorry, Simon,” Thad’s voice was cold and without remorse. “I don’t want to live with you anymore. What do you want me to say?”

  “What about the credit card? That’s just plain stealing, Thad.”

  “Don’t say that,” Thad shot back with indignation. “You never gave me shit for staying around, so I helped myself.”

  “Staying around?! Is that what it was?”

  Thad again remained quiet.

  “Put your trick on the phone,” I said, snidely. “I should warn him to keep his credit cards in his wallet.”

  “You’re fucked up, Simon. I bought jewelry with your card. I’ll send it to you. Just leave me the fuck alone. Okay?”

  “And stay out of my life!” I shouted.

  I went to the stereo, put on Schubert’s C-minor quintet, and tried to relax, but instead of providing comfort, Schubert’s somber melodies drove me deeper into despair. Only when the sun began to set and the amber light began streaming through the patio windows did I shake off the stupor and call Patricia.

  “Simone!” she squealed. “Ju left without saying good-bye. Ju should have asked me to babysit jure Thad.”

  She obviously knew the story.

  “And now ju call Patricia to cry about Thad, no?” Patricia giggled. “Ju want happy powder?”

  “I’ll come pick you up,” I said, getting down to business. “Can we score an ounce?”

  “No problema, Señor Simon,” Patricia said, affecting a manly voice.

  Patricia and I scored from Jesús. In the time since we’d first started dealing with him, he had moved into a gang-tagged neighborhood near MacArthur Park. The police had begun staking out his old apartment, forcing him to leave.

  Jesús was alone. I wondered if his wife and kids had left him, or if they actually had been his wife and kids. Patricia held my hand and made a big to-do, explaining how I had “come back to her.” Jesús appeared more strung out since the last time I saw him, and more paranoid. As we were leaving, he rushed to the blinds to peek outside.

  Safely back in the car, Patricia dipped into the package and set out a line on a small compact mirror she took from her purse. I bent over to snort it before starting the car. The drug was pure. My hands shook as waves of nervous energy tore through my system. In an instant, life was the way it was meant to be. Everything had happened for a reason.

  After a few more lines, I wasn’t sure I could make it to the Spotlight. “We better go while I can still drive,” I said.

  “Okay, we go see Scott and that juicy man, Jerry,” Patricia said.

  “You are one unique lady,” I said.

  Patricia smiled.

  “I have to give Scott an eight ball,” I said. “That’s what it took to find out what happened to Thad.”

  “Patricia would have told you about Thad.” She clearly was disappointed that I had not called her first. “Ju treat me like drug whore.”

  “You’re special, Patricia. I’m sorry. I didn’t think you would know what happened. That’s all.”

  “Okay, my love.” Patricia kissed me on the cheek.

  I parked along Selma Street and put the drugs I would give Scott in a folded piece of paper torn from the car’s owner’s manual and packaged a few gram papers. Patricia took some for her own use. Last, I filled an ounce bottle that had a gizmo on top that delivered a hit by turning a valve. The contraption made it possible to sneak a clandestine snort while sitting at the bar.

  Scott and Jerry were drunk. Rudy was playing liar’s poker with Don. Twiggy was tending the bar.

  Patricia glided toward Jerry and placed a well-manicured finger under his chin. She lifted his face and kissed him on the lips.

  When I approached, Scott said, “Did that mean old Thad hurt your feelings?” He scrunched his face into a pout.

  “Don’t push your luck,” I said. “I may go back on my promise.”

  Twiggy set up the bar on my request as I set down a hundred-dollar bill. I reached out to shake his hand, concealing a gram paper in my palm. Twiggy bent his middle finger to grasp it—a method we had perfected. He picked up a napkin and pretended to wipe his nose, wrapping the packet within it so he could put the drugs under the counter. Later he would pick up the napkin and head to the bathroom.

  I slipped Scott his drugs under the bar and then shared my coke-snorting contraption. Scott and Jerry got so horny they started to make out. When Scott’s head dipped into Jerry’s lap, I worried that Don would see what was going on and throw us out. But Twiggy was on the ball. He told Scott and Jerry to leave on his own. The Spotlight couldn’t risk an infraction called in by a vice cop.

  Rudy bowed out of the card game, coming over to join Patricia and me as Scott and Jerry staggered through the curtain and out the door. Rudy didn’t think much of Scott and kept his distance whenever he was around. Someone had told me that Rudy was on a diet, but it didn’t seem as though he’d lost any weight.

  “Simon, my god, have I got something to tell you,” Rudy began. “I thought that friend of yours would never leave.” He took a deep breath. “You have got to meet this boy I found. He has the face of a cherub.”

  “Tell me more,” I said.

  Patricia leaned close to hear what Rudy was saying.

  “If that cheating Miss Thad still lived with you,” Rudy gushed, “you’d kick her out for this one.”

  Did everyone know about Thad?

  Rudy explained how a young man had come into the bar earlier that day. Don wanted to let him stay, but he was obviously under twenty-one.

  “Where is he now?” I asked.

  “At my apartment with Charlotte and Lane. Have you met Charlotte?”

  “I don’t think so. Who’s she?”

  “Charlotte’s an old friend from Miami. She’s staying with me for a while. There isn’t room for everyone in my apartment, and the minute Lane laid eyes on the kid, he put his foot down and said he couldn’t stay. I didn’t want to put him back out on the street. Simon, this kid is tailor-made for you.”

  “And Lane?”

  “Honey!” Rudy seemed surprised. “He’s been my boyfriend for weeks. Where have you been?”

  “You make the kid sound like a lost puppy.”

  “Oh, darling, no puppy’s as cute as this one.”

  “Sounds like jailbait.”

  Rudy sighed. “Will you stop? This is destiny. The boy’s name is Axl. I’m sure it’s not his real name. Probably thinks he’s Axl Rose. But who cares about that? Oh, Simon, you’re just going to die!”

  “Destiny, huh?”

  Rudy looked at me blankly.

  “Never mind.”

  “Let’s go to my apartment right now,” Rudy insisted.

  Patricia, despairing that she could not compete with Rudy’s description of Axl, had gone into the back room to flirt with the pool players. She held out her hand as I approached, the overhead light reflecting in the glittered nail polish.

  “I have to go, Patricia. But I wanted to thank you for helping me.”

  “Ju have a new trick?” she asked with a touch of melancholy.

  “Rudy wants me to meet some kid who’s staying at his apartment. Take care of yourself.”

  “I want him to take care of me,” Patricia said, swinging her legs around and waving at a biker in a black leather jacket. He shifted his cigarette in his mouth and screwed his face into a grimace as he propped his cue stick on the edge of the table to prepare for a difficult shot.

  Rudy’s apartment was in a new building that ha
d a sterile feel about it. The smell of sawdust still permeated the hallways. It was the first time I’d visited since giving Rudy the security deposit.

  On the elevator, it struck me how badly I needed a line. Since telling me about his cocaine problem in Miami, I never mentioned drugs around Rudy and never did them in front of him.

  “Are you jonesing?” Rudy asked.

  “Yeah, Rudy. I am.”

  “And you have drugs on you?”

  “You know I do. Nothing gets by you at the Spotlight.”

  “Please don’t mention it to Lane. Axl will go gaga when he finds out you’re holding, but I don’t want Lane getting horny for it.”

  “I promise.”

  Rudy opened the apartment door and led me inside. At first, I only saw a woman whom I presumed to be Charlotte. She was in the kitchen standing at the stove. She had the look of an ingenue from a twenties Coca-Cola advertisement. Her red hair was thick, with curls that cascaded down her back. She smiled and said, “I’m making soup. Anybody want some?”

  Before deciding, Rudy sniffed the pot. He might have appeared to be someone who would eat anything, but he was a connoisseur.

  I looked around to catch a glimpse of the mythic youth but didn’t see him anywhere. Lane, who was on the couch hidden by a blanket, kicked it off to see whom Rudy had brought home. He was a bit stocky for my tastes, but he had a cute face and soft brown hair that swept over his forehead.

  Charlotte stopped stirring the soup for a moment in order to shake my hand. “Hello, Simon. You’re a wonderful friend to help Rudy get this place.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to see him leave town right after I met him. Anyway, I could afford it.”

  Charlotte smiled, perhaps a bit too knowingly, before saying to Rudy, “Go in there and introduce Simon to Wonder Boy.”

  Rudy’s eyes gleamed with mischief as he led me into the bedroom. Axl was strumming a guitar.

  My heart stopped, not because the boy was so beautiful, which he was, but because he looked like Ernie—the same round eyes, the same long eyelashes. Axl’s white-blond hair covered his ears and fell lightly across the nape of his neck, exactly like Ernie’s. He wore only a pair of jogging shorts. The image of Ernie coming straight from a swim, crossing the field, and climbing up the trellis to my bedroom window, flashed through my thoughts.